by Don Travis
A deafening roar came from the crowd as the personification of anxiety came apart. A flaming arm fell to the ground in a burst of sparks. The massive fire seemed to exert a magnetic force, drawing spectators at the rear to press even harder against those in front. The conflagration turned the chilly night warm as Old Sourpuss disintegrated before our eyes.
I stole a glance at Darrel. His eyes were glued to the dying monster. He trembled from unconcealed excitement.
The raging inferno collapsed in upon itself and became a mere bonfire. Immediately the most spectacular fireworks show I’d ever seen began. Rockets flared, shells burst. Vivid, vibrant colors filled the entire sky.
When it finally ended, I experienced an anticlimactic feeling, reinforced by the long, laborious, and sometimes contentious process of exiting the park. Egress was limited to a few routes, and for half an hour, the mob pressed toward the exits, carrying Darrel and me along with it. I spent most of my time trying to keep from tromping on the heels of the guy in front of me. Still it was a more or less orderly crowd. I heard a great deal of laughter as though the demise of Gloom had in fact freed the minds of the spectators.
Where were all those people going? Some were headed to the Armory for the Gran Baile, a fancy dance. Many would go to bars to sate their thirst while reliving the event; more than a few would retire to homes and hotel rooms to play out the savage sexual excitement of the evening.
“Man, that was something!” Darrel said as if in a daze. I suspected he was speaking to himself rather than to me. “Never seen anything like it. Of course, coming from Mississippi, I don’t cotton to hoods and bonfires too much.”
“Different time, different place, different message.”
I concentrated on shuffling one foot after the other as soon as a space opened up in front of me. As we neared the exit, I had a momentary glimpse of Del and a couple of other Blah-firm attorneys on the bridge that fed the crowd over the ditch and out onto the street. I hadn’t spotted them again by the time Darrel and I shook hands and parted, he for home, and I for the La Fonda.
Chapter 16
WELL RESTED and congratulating myself for skipping the wild parties that undoubtedly followed last night’s burning of Zozobra, I turned my thoughts back to Del’s problem. Still puzzling over the situation, I went outside for a few brisk turns around the city’s historic plaza. The booths cluttering the square were closed at this early hour.
Since Emilio hadn’t put in an appearance or gotten in touch with me yet, I figured my best bet would be to try getting a line on the banker Estelle had mentioned. Maybe Detective Arthur Hartshorn, an old friend from my cop days, might be able to help identify him. Artie kept his nose to the wind, which meant he knew a little about the gay scene in town. And if he didn’t, he had associates who did.
But the banker would have to wait until after I’d had some breakfast. The La Fonda restaurant had a good reputation, and that was saying something in a town filled with more first-class restaurants per capita than any place between St. Louis and San Francisco. As I reentered the lobby, a couple brushed past me.
“Imagine! A murder. And we were there last night.”
A murder? I viscerally connected “last night” with the Zozobra affair but immediately shut down that train of thought. I had come north to shed at least some of my worries, not to assume someone else’s. But for the clumsy way I’d handled things, Paul would be there with me, wearing the silver ring I’d bought yesterday afternoon. Was that symbolic or not? Anyway, we would have forgotten everything except what excitement we could spark between us.
The restaurant’s staff agreed to serve one of the La Fonda’s famous enchiladas con queso even though it was not yet time for the luncheon menu. The place was almost empty, but the staff scurried around getting ready for the noonday crowd. As I ate I enjoyed looking at the high-ceilinged Pueblo Revival interior that recalled New Mexico’s territorial past.
Pleasantly sated, I pulled out my phone and tried Emilio’s number again. It was probably a waste of time, but who knew? Abruptly the line opened on the other end. There was silence except for some traffic noise.
“Hello, Emilio?”
A strange yet oddly familiar voice demanded to know who I was.
I went defensive. “Who are you?”
“Who’re you calling?”
Tired of playing Who’s on First, I snapped, “I must have dialed a wrong number.”
“Are you trying to call a fellow named Emilio Prada?”
A dark cloud of unease settled around me. “Yes, that’s right.”
“This is Detective Arthur Hartshorn of the Santa Fe Police Department. Who is this?”
“Artie? This is B. J. Vinson. What’s going on?”
“BJ, where are you?”
“At the La Fonda.”
“You better get over here right away. Fort Marcy Park. Near the entrance to the ballpark.”
The line went dead as I got to my feet. Filled with dread, I dropped money on the table and hurried out the door. The trek to the park seemed longer than last night’s, and it was uphill all the way. Deep in my soul, I knew the murder the couple in the La Fonda lobby had been talking about had reached out and snared me.
Just before I reached the entrance to Fort Marcy, I saw a group of people behind the fence in a stand of trees not far from a pile of ash and charred rubble—all that remained of Zozobra. A figure moved away from the rest and met me halfway across the field. Santa Fe Detective Arthur Hartshorn.
“BJ.” His brown hair had gotten a little less brown and a lot thinner since I’d seen him last, but he carried his sixty years well. Except for the gray eyes—they’d always looked ten years older than the rest of him. Artie was about four inches shorter than I was, but we both weighed in at around 170.
“Hello, Artie. Please tell me this is not what I think it is.”
“Afraid so. Your friend’s down there behind that tree. Dead as Old Man Gloom. Were you here in the park last night?”
I nodded. “Right over yonder as close to the front of the crowd as I could get.”
He motioned to the form on the ground in the distance. “Did you see this kid here?”
“Nope.”
“I gotta ask this, BJ, you know that. Was this Emilio Prada one of your, uh…?”
“Nope. Never made it with the little bugger.”
“Then how come you called him this morning?”
“I’ve been trying to get in touch with him for a couple of days. He ties into an investigation I’m conducting for a client. Can I see him?”
“If you know him by sight, you can make the ID. Then we gotta go down to the station and get a statement. Okay?”
“Sure. No problem.”
He moved off toward a small group of police hovering around a body. One man, whose shape reminded me of a koala, seemed to be in charge. Artie introduced him as an OMI—Office of the Medical Inspector—doc named Mueller. I saw no evidence of the crime-scene unit, so they must have already come and gone.
“Are you a friend of our victim here?” Mueller asked in accented English.
“No. I knew him, but we were not friends. He was a person of interest in an investigation I’m conducting.”
“BJ’s a PI,” Artie explained. “Used to be an Albuquerque cop.”
“Ah.” The word came out just short of the German ach. “Then you can identify him for us.”
In my experience most bodies are ghastly before an undertaker gets to them; Emilio was the exception. He was as handsome in death as he had been in life. His brow was clear, his features relaxed. A slight waxen pallor was all that told you he was not asleep. That and the caked blood on his expensive windbreaker. A lot of it had puddled beneath him.
“That’s Emilio Prada,” I said. “What happened?”
“Looks like a stabbing, but the autopsy will tell us for sure,” Mueller said.
Doctors from the OMI, not coroners, performed all the autopsies in the state of New Mexico.
“You’ll be taking him to UNM Hospital in Albuquerque?”
“Yes, yes. But it will be a day or two before any autopsy is completed.”
“Will you be the one performing it?”
“Possibly.”
“May I have access to the results?”
“You must speak to Detective Hartshorn about that.” He turned to his assistants. “Okay, let’s load ’im up and move ’im out.” The play on the old Rawhide phrase uttered in guttural German-accented English sounded off-key under the circumstances.
“Any idea how long he’s been dead?” I asked Artie.
Mueller answered my question as he watched his assistants place Emilio on a gurney. “Torso’s in rigor, but not the whole body. So anywhere from twelve to eighteen hours.”
“Twelve hours would put it at around ten thirty last night. Hell, there were thousands of people here then.”
Artie grimaced. “Yeah, looks like he bought it right in the middle of the big shindig. Of course, down here in the tree line behind the puppet, he wasn’t so visible.”
I shook my head. “How did this happen? There was security up the kazoo around here last night.”
“Yeah, booze is banned too, but I’ll bet you saw plenty of it.”
“Some. But a knife?”
“Who knows? Might not be a knife. Hard to tell the difference between a gunshot and a stab wound sometimes. Maybe somebody went through the security checkpoint, and then someone else handed him a shiv or a piece through the fence.”
I eyed the area. “Can you fix a point of entry or exit?”
“Are you kidding? With that many people tromping around?”
“When did you find him?”
“Around four this morning.”
“Somebody shoulda spotted him,” I said.
“Somebody probably did—several somebodies, in fact. They all likely figured he was passed out drunk.”
“With all that blood?”
“Nobody got that close. Shied away on purpose, I’d guess. Until one of the patrols spotted him. They protected the area as much as they could until crime scene and OMI got here. Let’s go back to the station house for a little talk.”
The drive to the police station wasn’t far, but a short drive on the City Different’s narrow old-world streets is often a quicker walk. One doesn’t get in a hurry in Santa Fe. Artie had chosen to walk to the crime scene, so we chatted about the old days until we were seated in his office. Then he turned to business.
“What’s your connection to this guy?” His eyebrow arched, silently asking the question already answered back at the park.
“Like I said, he was involved in a case I’m working.”
“What’s the case? You want to fill me in?”
“It’s sorta sensitive. Can you give me some time?”
“Murder’s sorta sensitive too. Come on, BJ, you know the drill.”
“Okay, but let me call my client first. Give him a heads-up.”
“Like to accommodate you, you know, for old time’s sake. But let’s have our talk first. By the way,” he added in a falsely offhand manner, “the kid had your name and number on him… in addition to one other. You know of any connection between him and an Albuquerque lawyer by the name of Del Dahlman?”
I bowed to the inevitable. This was going to get headlines, but there was nothing I could do about that. Since Artie already had Del’s name, it would be best to make a clean breast of it. Artie listened to the whole tale without interrupting.
“You were standing not more than a hundred yards from where the guy died, maybe even when he died. Were you with anybody?”
“Local architect named Darrel. We met at the park. It was his first burning, and I tried to explain the thing as best I understood it.”
“Darrel, huh? Darrel who?”
“Don’t know. We never got around to last names.”
“What’d you do after the burning?”
“Went to my room at the La Fonda and turned in. I was waiting for Emilio, actually. I’d left a message on his cell phone saying I was registered at the La Fonda. But he didn’t show up or phone, so I had a good peaceful night.”
Artie stretched his back muscles. “Given what you told me about his relationship with Dahlman, it looks like this could be a gay catfight. Or maybe the kid propositioned the wrong guy and it’s a hate crime.”
“Possibly, but I think it’s connected to my case.”
“He have any relatives who need notifying?”
“Probably, but they’re all down in Mexico. The kid came from somewhere around Durango.”
“Better notify the Mexican authorities, I guess.” Artie sighed. “This is another one the county’s going to have to bury, I suppose.”
“Not if you find his automobile. That’ll pay for a pretty fancy funeral. It’s an ’04 Mustang convertible. Electric blue with gold trim.”
“You don’t happen to know the plate number, do you?”
“New Mexico vanity plate BIGBOI.”
“He didn’t look so big stretched out on the grass like that.”
I grimaced. “Death seems to shrink us all. Look, you heard what Mueller said. Will you share the autopsy results?” I paused and addressed the obvious. “After I’m ruled out as a suspect, that is.”
“Once that’s done, I don’t see a problem.”
Artie leaned back in his chair and started with the questions again—some pretty penetrating questions. Aware I was a potential suspect, I answered very carefully. Artie showed me a photo of a big knife the officers found not far from where Emilio died. At this point they were assuming it was the murder weapon. The blade was about halfway between a Marine Corps bayonet and a bowie knife. The kid’s blood encrusting the tip made the thing appear even nastier.
He also had photos of the piece of paper they’d found in Emilio’s pocket with my name and phone number written in a crude cursive script, not block letters like the ransom notes. Since Del’s data was scribbled just above mine in the same laborious manner, I surmised it was Emilio’s handwriting. The paper was torn from a cheap, lined writing tablet.
“So, you didn’t see this kid last night?” Artie started around the bend again.
“No, but it wasn’t from lack of trying. He finally phoned back a few days ago and said we’d better meet. Maybe he was beginning to feel threatened for some reason. When he didn’t respond to any more of my calls, I left a message saying I’d be at the Zozobra burning and was staying at the La Fonda.”
“So he coulda been trying to find you at the park.” Artie scratched his head. “Hard to see a pissant blackmail attempt leading to murder. Still looks like a gay bashing to me.”
“I’m convinced it’s not a gay killing, Artie. But I have to admit the other doesn’t make a whole lot of sense either. Everybody knows Del’s gay. It’s the TV and newspaper publicity he’s worried about. Photos that sensational would likely cause a stir.”
“Hell, nobody could publish them if they’re as raunchy as you say.”
“It would be easy enough to upload them on the Internet. Then the media would sit up and take notice.”
“I guess,” Artie allowed. After a pause he asked the question I’d dreaded. “You know where your client was last night?”
“You’ll have to ask him. I’ll see that he phones you, okay?”
“Yeah, you do that.”
An hour later, Artie had my statement on paper. Finding no fault with the document, I signed it, and after agreeing to a search of my luggage and car, I was allowed to leave. An associate of Artie’s walked me to the La Fonda and went upstairs so he could check out my room and overnight bag. When he finished there, I went to the front desk to turn in my key and settle my bill while he headed for the garage. I warned him there were weapons in the vehicle and showed him my carry license before handing over my keys. By the time I got to the garage, he’d finished the search. He returned my keys and left for the station.
As soon as he left, I dialed the St
one law firm. I cut off Del’s secretary before she got three words into her usual stonewalling routine. “Listen to me very carefully. If I don’t speak to Del Dahlman within the next five minutes, I guarantee you’ll be out of a job.”
Del exploded into my earpiece thirty seconds later. “Vince, what do you mean threatening my secretary? I’m in the middle of—”
“Del, shut the fuck up and listen! Emilio Prada’s dead. He was stabbed to death last night in Santa Fe at Fort Marcy Park—at the Zozobra burning. You were there. I saw you.”
“What? Emilio’s dead?” He had an odd catch in his voice. Apparently there was no cure for Prada fever. Well, I understood that; I was still perversely fond of the prick on the other end of this phone call.
“I spent the morning with a Santa Fe police detective who found our names and telephone numbers on Emilio’s body, so I decided to make a clean breast of everything rather than risk alienating the lead investigator with a claim of client privilege. You need to start putting your house in order. The world’s about to come down on you like a ton of bricks.”
Del spouted some four-lettered legalese before returning to the problem. “I was at the burning last night, but I was with five or six other lawyers every minute of the time. And I can prove it. No way I could have killed Emilio.”
“No, but you could have hired it done to keep him from publishing those pictures.”
“Hired it done? Who would I have hired?”
“Me, for instance.”
He took another expression directly from the lawyer’s handbook. “Oh, fuck! It will look like that to some people, won’t it?”
“Yep, to those with nasty minds. The detective handling the case in Santa Fe is Artie Hartshorn. I suggest you contact him and volunteer a statement. Phone him first and offer to come up for a face-to-face interview. I’ll go up with you if you want.”